Stephen E. Morrissey

Steve Morrissey is a first-chair commercial trial lawyer who has more than twenty-five years of experience representing plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes litigation and arbitration matters throughout the country. Because of his judgment, tenacity, creativity, and commitment to mastering the factual and legal issues in any case, clients ranging from multi-billion dollar corporations to entrepreneurs and classes of individuals trust Morrissey to craft and implement winning legal strategies for some of their most complex and challenging legal problems. Because of his leadership and management skills, state and federal courts have appointed Morrissey to serve as lead counsel or on the executive committee in high-profile environmental, shareholder, antitrust, and copyright class actions. Lawdragon has recognized Morrissey as a top 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyer in 2025 and among the country’s 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers every year since 2019, a designation reserved for the “best of the U.S. plaintiffs’ bar who specialize in representing individual investors and shareholders, as well as businesses and other organizations harmed by corporate misconduct or other failures.”

HIGH-STAKE PLAINTIFFS’ CASES

Morrissey has a long history of representing individual entrepreneurs, investors, and smaller companies in “David v. Goliath” battles against big companies and their large teams of lawyers from some of the best defense firms in the country, and typically does so on a contingent fee basis.

• Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. v. Joseph A. Agiato, Jr. In 2025, Morrissey represented the founder of PIUS RE, a specialized insurance broker, in pursuing an earnout claim and defending counterclaims brought by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., one of the world’s largest insurance brokerage firms, in litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery arising from Gallagher’s acquisition of PIUS. The case settled for a confidential amount after Morrissey argued and won a motion for judgment on the pleadings on a $50 million earnout claim.
• Pre-Litigation Mediation and Settlement for Angel Investors in Cryptocurrency Startup. In 2020, Morrissey represented a group of high-profile Silicon Valley angel investors and preferred shareholders in a cryptocurrency and blockchain startup. Morrissey was lead counsel in developing a litigation and settlement strategy that resulted in a confidential settlement worth hundreds of millions of dollars before even needing to file a complaint.
• Lamar v. Beats Electronics, Dr. Dre. and Jimmy Iovine. Morrissey was co-lead counsel in a breach of contract case on behalf of entrepreneur Steven Lamar and his company, Jibe Audio, involving a claim for royalties on the iconic Beats headphones products.  In 2018, Morrissey’s trial team won a jury verdict that confirmed Lamar’s right to royalties on Beats headphones and a judgment worth more than $50 million. The case settled for a confidential amount after trial.
• Peak Hosting v. Machine Zone. Morrissey was co-lead counsel to Peak Hosting in its breach-of-contract and business tort lawsuit against Machine Zone, Inc.—a Silicon Valley giant and purveyor of two of the most popular mobile games, “Mobile Strike” and “Game of War.” The matter was settled on confidential terms in late 2017.
• Casey v. Simmons. In 2009 Morrissey won a $178.7 million jury verdict, which included $145 million in punitive damages. The case involved breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty case on behalf of the three individual owners of an environmental cleanup company. The case settled for a confidential amount while on appeal.
• Masimo v. Tyco. Morrissey first won a $420 million jury verdict (after trebling) in an antitrust case based on Tyco Healthcare Group’s monopolization of the market for pulse oximetry products. After the trial court upheld the liability findings and ordered a new trial on damages, Morrissey and his team then won again, with the trial court entering a judgment for $43.5 million in damages (after trebling), plus attorneys’ fees, in June 2007. Masimo ultimately was awarded $58.9 million after another win affirming the judgment in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
• Platform Solutions v. IBM. Morrissey was one of the lead lawyers responsible for the representation of startup mainframe computer manufacturer Platform Solutions, Inc. in prosecuting multi-hundred million dollar antitrust claims against IBM, in defending PSI against patent infringement, copyright, and trade secrets claims brought by IBM, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and in coordinating PSI’s antitrust strategy in the EU. The case settled on confidential terms in June 2008.
• Ravikant v. Tolia. Morrissey represented 51 former shareholders and early employees of Epinions, Inc. in groundbreaking litigation involving the fiduciary duties of venture capitalists and venture capital firms when serving on the boards of portfolio companies, the duties of founders to one another, and the valuation of common stock in startup acquisitions. The case was successfully settled on confidential terms.

HIGH-IMPACT ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION

Morrissey represents thousands of residents of communities impacted by pollution in class and mass tort actions that seek to hold polluters accountable for the injuries they have caused. Those matters include:

• Cape Fear GenX/PFAS Litigation. Morrissey is Co-Lead Class Counsel in a class action against DuPont and Chemours in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The case seeks relief on behalf of thousands of North Carolinians who have been harmed by decades of discharges by DuPont and Chemours of GenX and other toxic PFAS chemicals by DuPont and Chemours into the water supply in the Cape Fear River basin. Click here or here for coverage on this news.
• Flint Water Crisis Litigation. Morrissey is a member of the Executive Committee and chairs the Expert Committee in complex litigation arising from the Flint Water Crisis., Morrissey’s team has secured court-approved settlements valued at more than $650 million with multiple governmental defendants and the two private engineering firms that advised the City of Flint on the handling of its water distribution system.
• Whidbey Island/OLF Coupeville Naval Air Flight Operations. Morrissey is lead counsel for a class of residents of Whidbey Island, Washington pursuing litigation filed in 2019 against the United States government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims based on the U.S. Navy’s substantial increase in EA18-G Growler flight operations from a small airstrip on the island and the impact on residents’ properties.

HIGH-PROFILE CLASS ACTIONS

Morrissey’s class action practice has included a broad away of high-profile matters in jurisdictions throughout the country, including:

• Langer v. CME Group. Through more than a decade of litigation, Morrissey has served as Co-Lead counsel for a proposed class of members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade in a breach of contract class action seeking more than two billion in damages and prejudgment interest from the CME Group in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago. Post-trial motions for new trial and notwithstanding the verdict are currently pending after a jury reached a defense verdict following a three week trial in July 2025.
• Flo & Eddie v. Sirius XM. Morrissey was Co-Lead counsel for 1970’s music group, The Turtles, and a class of owners of pre-1972 recordings in a class action lawsuit against Sirius XM that settled less than 48 hours before the jury trial was scheduled to begin.
• Ferrick v. Spotify. In 2017, Morrissey was one of the lead lawyers that helped secure a $43.45 million cash fund and an agreement to pay future royalties estimated to be worth more than $65 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with Spotify brought on behalf of music copyright owners.
• White v. NCAA. Morrissey was one of the lead lawyers responsible for the pioneering litigation and settlement in this antitrust class action in the Central District of California that paved the way for subsequent antitrust challenges to NCAA restrictions on the rights of student athletes.

HIGH-VALUE RESULTS FOR CORPORATE CLIENTS

Morrissey has extensive experience representing clients in defending complex litigation matters. Morrissey’s experience representing plaintiffs helps him develop winning strategies and craft alternative fee arrangements that serve the client’s interests in aligning financial interests to achieve successful results, promoting efficient litigation, providing predictable budgets. Some of Morrissey’s cases on behalf of defense clients include:

• FSG Services LLC. v. Flutter Entertainment.This high stakes, high profile arbitration resulted from FOX’s assertion that it should be entitled to the same price Flutter paid for its share of FanDuel two years before the arbitration took place – $2.1 billion, with an implied company valuation of $11.2 billion. The arbitrator, however, found that FOX’s payment must be based on a substantially higher FanDuel valuation of $20 billion it was hoping for, plus an additional 5% interest per year. At the time of the decision, this equated to a valuation for FanDuel of $22 billion and an option exercise price of $4.1 billion for FOX — nearly twice the amount that FOX argued it should be required to pay. The arbitrator also rejected FOX’s claim that Flutter had not provided commercially reasonable resources to the Fox Bet business. Read more.
• Mortgage Crisis Litigation. Morrissey represented a Fortune 500 mortgage company in “bet the company” arbitrations involving the rescission of more than $500 million in bulk insurance coverage based on lenders’ misrepresentations and other misconduct in connection with the underlying loans. The case touched on many of the issues that were at the center of the collapse of the housing market and the global financial crisis. After an intense pre-trial discovery period, Morrissey’s client was able to negotiate a favorable settlement less than two weeks before trial.
• Parvin v. CNA. Morrissey was hired by CNA to take over the defense of a case in the District of Oregon three months before the scheduled trial of bad faith insurance settlement claims seeking tends of millions of dollars based on claimed business losses. Morrissey successfully persuaded the court to reconsider its ruling and won the case on a renewed motion for summary judgment.
• Jefferies & Co v. NASDAQ. Morrissey represented NASDAQ and its affiliate IDCG in an arbitration against Jefferies & Co., who sought tens of millions of dollars in damages. After a one-week trial in 2012, at which Morrissey gave the opening statement and put on NASDAQ’s principal fact witness, the Panel issued a decision denying all of Jefferies’ claims and awarding no damages.

In addition to his commercial litigation practice, Morrissey has committed substantial time to public service and pro bono work, including the representation of state attorneys’ general of Wisconsin and Arizona in litigation challenging the results of the 2020 Presidential election, representing individual immigrants in habeas matters, and serving for several years on the board and as board president of a local youth sports organization.

Morrissey prefers to work on a contingent or flat fee arrangement that rewards efficiency and results but is also willing to handle matters by the hour when doing so suits the client’s needs. He would be happy to talk to you about the type of arrangement that would work best for your case.

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